if. you leave me. alone and welcome to cross talk i'm peter lavelle out with the old in with the new with the arrival of two thousand and thirteen what can we expect will the global economy continue on its slow pace of recovery or is there another crisis in the cards well western powers in israel finally decide to attack iran will the world come together to deal with extreme weather and will america see another horrific year of mass murders. across the predictions for two thousand and thirteen i'm joined by john glaser in washington he's an assistant editor and blogger for antiwar dot com in san francisco we have will durst he is a political comic and syndicated columnist and in paris we cross the analysts

a bit more she is a journalist and political commentator right cross talk rules in effect as usual john we're foreign policy expert do you see in your crystal ball an attack on iran this year. i doubt it you know we came very close i think in twenty eleven in two thousand and twelve to a war in iran the israelis were pressuring washington pretty hard for you know a first strike but the obama administration as much as i have to criticize them for really they. engaged in a diplomatic offensive to reiterate to people that number one the intelligence says iran is not producing nuclear weapons they have no nuclear weapon program and to that that you know a war on iran would really be both ineffective and counterproductive because in less we've changed the regime and you know have another war like iraq in

afghanistan probably combined. that will just mote motivate the iranians to actually start building a bomb and so i think that it's there's wide consensus that it war in iran would be too costly and is not the right time right here the you know people like. martin dempsey the chairman of joint chiefs of staff the highest military office in the country he says this kind of thing many in the in the obama administration have chuck hagel the presumptive nominee for secretary of defense for the abomination second term he's very weary of a war in iran so i think the tide is actually turning a little bit and we'll have to see if it plays out that way but what we're probably going to be faced with is what the obama terms a dual track which is diplomacy and. harsh sanctions that primarily harm the iranian people not the government and that's unfortunate or are ok that's like

carrots and sticks there i think i will if i go to you in san francisco i will obama be emboldened now he's reelected he's technically a lame duck ok i mean will he be more bold in his approach to domestic policy and foreign policy in your opinion. well you know it is second term they always think of their legacy and second term is where presidents in america constantly get in trouble because they can't run for a third term they're termed out boom they get they get or set things up for who's ever going to run after them from their party either joe biden or hillary clinton but mostly he's focused on legacy and that's why i think health care and maybe a lasting peace bringing people home from afghanistan and also getting the economy in shape because people are going to remember him afterwards the same way they

remember clinton that clinton were the boom years and i think that's what he's going to try to get well what about gun control. he might try to do something on gun control but nothing to the two parties are so solidified that the two sides and the and the gun proponents the people who own guns are not going to budge a millimeter not not a thirty zero six not not not even not even the length of a bullet so it's going to be difficult what he might be able to do as a compromise is to limit the size of magazines and that could be seen as a victory because right now you can thirty thirty shot magazines but if you can get it down to ten or twenty he's good he's going to try to find some victory there ok the insanity of american gun control and elizabeth let's talk about another more optimistic topic the euro zone what do you think's going to happen this year. i

think the eurozone will keep it together and i always thought about because. that was the misunderstanding of the commitment of the germans the french the italians and the spaniards the core nations to keeping the euro together and the central bankers said you know the germans do not like paying for quite a bit of the greek and pop probably the spanish that they will do it they have committed to it and the european nations have even though they have been protest anger they have committed to staying within the european construction because they don't see how europe can go back to being a series of atomized nations so it's really a question of an economic decision that also is a political decision i think there will be it will be difficult to get european nations to move towards fiscal unity it makes sense because if you can play the

budget or when country against another you will have speculation different landing rates everywhere but i think the reason why you haven't heard about the euro zone conflict these past weeks is that it is actually doing better and if you look at the stock exchanges in the various european countries euro zone countries you can see that they're shooting right up there's also something that i always like to remind people because they say the the ratio of debt to g.d.p. of france is like that of america or britain or this is absolutely not true because if you look at what the debt ratio is for countries like france or even if you're spain what you're talking about is you're talking about something that is legally defined by the maastricht treaty and it adds up national that regional that city's municipality is a social obligation pensions everything if you look at where the american debt is announcing the federal debt it doesn't take the states it doesn't take the cities it doesn't take the medicare commitments it doesn't take the pensions and if you

watch a calculated rather than have something like a round. one hundred percent of g.d.p. you'd be more looking at something that is about two hundred twenty of g.d.p. and so i will say that if you look at the fundamentals in european economies they're not half as bad as you think in the eurozone especially and so i would bet on the euro ok the americans will keep printing money i have no doubt about that john where you think the arab spring is going to go there's any doubt about it i. don't really think the arab spring is going to happen do it this year. you know it's tough to say there are still a lot of things happening you know some people think there was a law all after egypt and tunisia. but there are still a lot of things happening i mean jordan right now is facing a lot of domestic. people are very upset with the government they are vying for some sort of constitutional monarchy that is more. that addresses more of their

social concerns and doesn't for example torture people and and have a police state which is what they essentially have crane is still you know people are still fighting for freedom they're they're they're still out in the streets despite a ban on all demonstrations and protests. which the bahraini government has imposed with american support. but you know we'll have to see i think yemen will continue to be a very disappointing area of the arab spring you know there's a lot of protests that tried to oust the previous president ali abdullah saleh and now this guy months or hadi is in and he has become such an immediate american puppet with increased american aid and military assistance basically a bribe so he can continue to secretly bomb his country with drones so that's going to be skinny to this disappoint bahrain i think is going to continue disappoint

because it's too geo politically important the obama administration to allow any sort of semblance of democracy but i think things will continue to move along and we still a lot to see with egypt as well which i might not have time to go into ok will you is washington going to continue its gridlocked i mean obama will be really inaugurated soon the republicans are going to treat him the same way like he during the first four years it depends on how strong their bases and what john boehner. speaker of the house john boehner is able to if he's able to wrangle some of the some of the tea party guys or some of the guys who are afraid of being cheap partied who are being run against in the primaries so i don't i don't think it's going to happen i think the polarization is is going to remain because these people have proven that they don't care about the sake of the country that they believe in their principles in and we ask what their principles are and it's no taxes close

the borders and women are baby tunnels for christ and the people have these ideas and they can't compromise and elizabeth what you react to what you just heard there . is that is it that bad with the right in there in america yes i actually i know but quite a few people on the right in america including in the tea party are not all half as bad as that quite honestly there's a wonderful book that was out last year which is called this is new angry mob that this is no angry mob that's my mom. and i think if you try to i lived in america and i have been a correspondent for a french magazine in america for several years and if you strike traveling in what is known as fly over country you know red states the bit in the middle that people do not go to you meet the most extraordinary people and as a frenchwoman i find them very close to what is being described by took these when he writes about american democracy in america and what they have is they have the

sort of the market square democracy you can agree or disagree with things but these are basically the sort of genuinely sort of nice and friendly people and i think they are being caricature by the people on either coast i would totally disagree on this well i mean we did have that legal legal rate and things like that i mean that there's all kind of characterize people go ahead well real quick before we go to the break i don't even know what you're talking about on the feeling that that fly over country i go back there. i go back there a lot and the people are wonderful it's the people that they elect as their leaders that are not so wonderful all right gentlemen and lady we're going to go to washington for a day and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on the new year stay with our team. these are.

the five. wealthy british style. on the title. market why not. come to find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cars or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into a report on. the mission and free critique a should free zones for judges free to arrangements free. three

stooges free. zone free broadcast clothing video for your media projects and free media dot com you. sometimes see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

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welcome across the computer labelle to remind you we're talking about predictions for the new year two thousand and thirteen. ok analyst mr in a break you said you want to reply to me go right ahead please. basically i want to talk about this the senator who said something i strolled really stupid about. you know the children of rape being still having the right to live but he didn't say that rape wasn't a horrible thing which he said was that when you have life a life is sacred now i'm not going i'm not starting from his standpoint but i will say one thing i remember a few years back to very good friends of mine looking at the echo of the baby and the baby was about six or seven weeks but it moved and it was a living thing so it made me think and i'm absolutely pro-choice but it made me

think you know what gives me the right to decide that if i want this baby it's it's a baby and if i don't want it it's a thing and i can throw it away and i would say if you're a religious person at the very least it is it is something that you can discuss and what he this this this senator said extremely clumsy he said this is life and it ought to be respected but he did try and say that rape was a horrible thing he never said that it was legal and ok i don't want to dwell on this i want to develop on the new year john glaser what i'd like you to tell me what you would like to see happen this year what one good thing could happen because so much of what we do in news is suppressing go ahead. that's true what we like to focus on is the bad stuff so that's the stuff we want to improve but i would i would definitely like to see more americans pay attention to serious societal issues as opposed to the super bowl and you know apple pie what's on

television and so forth. i think that there's a lot that needs to be discussed and focused on and debated and we have a sort of an a.d.d. culture with what people are willing to pay attention to on the other side of that you know people are involved more than they have in past times and so that's a good sign but i think we need more of it also i'd like to see a continuing disintegration of the mainstream media's grip on what people actually consume all the more that i lie think of the internet. the internet has as sort of punk punch it punctured that a bit and you know places like r.t. and others have have done a good job of trying to puncture it as well will what would you like to see happen this year ok i mean all of us would like to see unemployment go down you know just more prosperity for the average family. more prosperity for there and maybe maybe some forward thinking maybe some ideas of what's going to happen in the future

maybe lay a base save up for a rainy day america is going to have an explosion of the elderly here getting our the workforce getting into social security getting into medicare and they get to prepare for that though they're all baby boomers every year it's started three years ago with the baby boomers. reaching the age of sixty five and it's going to happen for the next fifteen years and and that huge demographic bulge which they call the pig in the snake because that's what it looks like that's that's going to hit and what we actually have to start preparing for that and i want to but so i want to be prepared for it and elizabeth what would you like to see happen this year well what we know is that there's a whole block of countries that we're not talking about too often that have had consistency in the past four or five years ten percent eight percent twelve percent

growth and i'd like them to keep on growing and start teaching us things and these are countries in africa and nobody is paying attention to the fact that africa is mostly and stood have put aside places like the congo but mostly it is becoming an economic success i find this very encouraging i find that lots of the african elites are extremely well educated and i like sort of get into a for us for a change to a good look at solutions in africa and bring them to our depressed first world ok john i mean i'm glad this was brought up i mean africa it's more more on america's radar particular the military. yeah there's some troubling trends and although i is she she's right you know there are a lot of cases in africa where the countries are you know opening their borders to more trade their sort of have a more firm grounding of rule of law and that's spurring some economic growth these are good things but the united states has you know only recently in the past i

think five years has the u.s. imposed a domain as pentagon domain on africa before africa was just left out in the water because it didn't matter much to anybody but now that you know after libya there's been more. al-qaeda so-called you know so-called al-qaeda activity and however small this is and however localized it is because not a direct threat to the united states the united states has said oh we're going to get more involved so we're involved in mali were involved in nigeria were involved in uganda in sort of east african area were involved in somalia and these are all of which serious dangerous trends that we're seeing because most of it's done in secret most of it's done with sort of special ops and drones the american people don't know about it and it could end up very very very poorly for a lot of innocent people in africa most thinking in foreign policy will do you think china now is america's number one enemy after what we saw in the election

i don't know of anime i think. well america always needs an enemy america always has an enemy ok so is this the new one. well you well yet we do we need something to leverage our and the tea against that it was russia for a while and then it was japan remember the early eighty's arisings on in and now and now it's well then it was iran and iraq and iran and saddam really helped because saddam was he looked evil he was perfectly good police sketch artist rendering of a child molester yeah he was a perfect villain and china is kind of faces and really no warrants out on as we know there are huge you know go ahead john jumping out. so this is really amazing to me because the primary problem that the united states sees with china is that

its economy is too strong and that it's building up its military so these are two things that the united states prides itself on our giant military and a big economy right what that weather what a big economy in china reflects is number one a lot of hundreds of thousands of people being lifted out of poverty in inside china but also means help for the united states because trade is obviously mutually beneficial and so trade in international borders being a little more open to trade this is a good thing for the united states and washington wants to paint it as a bad thing they're playing a very sort of great game geo politicking in asia and because china is having success they're moving to try and contain china so that means backing a lot of unscrupulous people in asia pacific surging military forces there naval forces there this is all very bad it's an interesting way of the united states turning something positive into something very terrible and it makes it easy for people to go china is our next greatest enemy ok and elizabeth you talk about are

you are you sure not leak a well go ahead journey and dinner i do think you disagree on the ok and elizabeth go first go ahead i completely disagree on the several things first of all the strange and mysterious people strange people that america is helping in the age of passive think of basically the japanese and taiwan who are you know well known and there's this sort of threat of the chinese military to occupy some islands install towards japan which is not something that anybody needs second i would be less optimistic about the fate of china that you seem to be because china itself has got massive problems it has just tipped the scales where you have more people now living in the citizen china than living in the countryside it's got. it's beginning to have problems of workforce in some places it's got huge massive corruption and you've got hu jintao who just left the presidency of the country who left with two

point seven billion dollars which he acquired god knows how and and you got this tease in various regional places which all do held by the communist party of people who are making huge fortunes at that level for their own families so what i'm saying is that i'm not sure that the growth of china is still going to go on like that and i also think the ruling party in china has got the major problem that they do not know how to take a decision so they bounce back a decision from regional local to regional to national level and something the answer no also has lot back to them and the whole country is sort of teacher ing happening with the proceeds from foreign trade and they know perfectly well that if the economies in the west do good you're a bully down you know there's going to be less trade and already the growth figures have been going slightly down from a very high point so i'm not saying that first of all china is in such good shape and second i'm not saying that he's got good john go ahead and we're going to well

go ahead john if if it if this were a show about how you know criticizing china i would have a lot to say you know china does have corruption that you talk about they have a lot of domestic repression that's very unhealthy there's a lot to criticize and there's a lot to say that china's growth is on too high of a slope it will go down soon that's probably true but this doesn't justify building up military interventionism in the region and you know what i was talking about supporting unscrupulous leaders and they also affect what the philippines how in the philippines we just talked about we just security deal the obama administration did for increasing the u.s. military presence in the philippines we have a long unfortunate colonial type history in the philippines but right now the president president of the no elect has he has has been. yes but they also have serious repression and torture and the us supported security forces less than how

you do it i don't know if you're serious yeah ok well i want you to jump in we're almost out of time for i will jump in. i the only thing the only thing good about china is that a lot of people are buying i phones and buicks and that's good for america and as long as we can keep that pipeline go and one way or at major major point one way everybody will be happy and elizabeth is going to be the last word on the program is this going to be a good year for europe where i could hardly be as bad a year as last year say oh if you know if we stick it together and if the british can be convinced not to leave all together because that's one of the really crazy things that they're capable of doing i think will scrape through but we're running out of time just to also do you know here to see how the year runs through many thanks indeed to my guests and watched in san francisco and in paris and thanks to our viewers for watching us here to see you next time and remember cross talk rules . we really believe the i'm.

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you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for lengthly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom hartman welcome to the big picture.